Changes ahead for Dabiz Muñoz: his DiverXO will reopen in 2025 in a new location, situated in the residential neighborhood of La Finca in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid. It will be a newly constructed building, costing between 12 and 14 million euros.
The news
Dabiz Muñoz doesn't hide his ambitions, according to whom the new DiverXO, whose opening is scheduled for 2025, will be the best restaurant in the world. After all, an impressive amount is at stake, between 12 and 14 million euros (as revealed by El País on its website): the building, in fact, is newly constructed. Located in the residential neighborhood of La Finca, in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid, it will be the result of the agreement signed in the summer of 2022 with the Garcia Cereceda family of La Finca itself: they will take care of the container, namely the infrastructure and the work, while the company UniverXO, owned by Muñoz and his wife Cristina Pedroche, will take care of the spaces, interior design, and management.
For the restaurant at the top of the world rankings, this will already be the fourth move. While it's true that the partners will largely finance it, the chef still had to request a loan from the bank. And if he got it, he emphasizes, it was because of the overall success of his businesses. The piggy bank is empty, according to his own statements, but because "we reinvest everything." Available, thanks to Pedroche's redesign, are an operational director, a production director, and a marketing manager. "We have hired people from the most diverse backgrounds, who have allowed us to build a company that today breathes modernity. But there is still much to be done. Working at UniverXO today is very different from ten years ago," he claims, alluding to the professionalization of management, beyond the dining room and the kitchen.
It's not the only new development cooking: Muñoz is also working on the opening of the new StreetXO in Dubai, modeled after the one in Madrid, but without pork, thus reopening the overseas channel, which seemed to have abandoned when he left London in 2020 due to the pandemic. But there are also plans for a retail concept in Spain. Because at the age of 44, "I still have a lot of hunger and ambition to pursue."
